Amédée Ozenfant

Epelstein Collection, United States
Contamin Collection, Paris
Private Collection, Geneva
Acquired from the above

Executed on white wove paper, not laid down, fixed to the backing board at several points at the top and in the center. The rectangular composition in the center of the sheet is in very good original condition and the colors remain strong. There is a 4cm minor crease running vertically in the white and grey just above the center and a 2cm diagonal crease at the base of the pitcher. Around the unpainted border of the sheet (not at all visible when framed): the right edge is uneven with associated nicks and losses, notably a 4 x 1cm triangular loss. The upper right corner is missing and the lower corners have very small flattened folds. There are vertical flattened folds running near the left and right edges, with some additional creasing on the left, and some finger smudges and media marks around the border, inherent to the artistic technique.
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Executed in 1922, the elegant pastel composition Fugue, guitare et architecture epitomizes the short-lived Purist movement that Ozenfant founded in collaboration with the artist and architect Le Corbusier. After initially embracing the principles of Cubism, from 1915 Ozenfant became increasingly dissatisfied with the direction the movement was taking and in 1918 he and Le Corbusier published a manifesto entitled Après le Cubisme which outlined the tenets of their new artistic vision. Purism derived its basis from the deconstructive elements of Cubism but emphasized a perfectionist, refined aesthetic based on mathematical order, purity and logic, perhaps reflective of the communal desire for a return to order after the turmoil of World War I. These ideologies are evident in the present work, in which the components of the still-life composition are reduced to their purest geometric forms and the palette has been simplified to a defined range of brown, gray and sepia.

Ozenfant continued to work closely with Le Corbusier throughout the 1920s, and the work both men produced during these years reveals an intriguing artistic dialogue, culminating in the design by Le Corbusier of Ozenfant's home and studio in 1923. Ozenfant’s interest in design is evident in Fugue, guitare et architecture, in which a Doric column rises in the background, its curved lines mirroring the guitar and pitcher in the foreground. This Neo-Classical aesthetic was a recurring motif in Ozenfant’s Purist works, in keeping with his desire for a controlled, measured balance of form. 

Two pastels of this subject exist and it is likely that they served as preparatory studies for a pair of monumental canvases that took up the architectural theme in 1926: Grande cruche et architecture (Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence) and Cruche avec fond d’architecture (Kunsthaus, Zurich). From the late 1920s Ozenfant would incorporate more organic, figurative forms in his art; however it was in these tightly structured, architectural still-life compositions that Purism found its most poised expression.